Controlling Our Food: The World According to Monsanto is a documentary which investigates the company by compiling pieces of its history, revealing unpublished documents and first-hand accounts. The film was premiered in France on the 11 March 2008.
Controlling Our Food: The World According to Monsanto is going to be the subject for my case study and I will be trying to respond to the following question: 'Should We Trust Monsanto?'.
Th Science Behind GMOs -
Evidence, argument and counter-argument -
A farmer who uses Monsanto's best-selling herbicide, 'Roundup', on his soybeans (genetically inserted with a protein) says that the product was advertised in a farm magazine and acknowledges the advantages, quoting: 'If you look at my field here, you don't see weeds'. He continues: 'I'd encourage European farmers to look at the Roundup Ready technology, frankly it's very good for the environment, it's a sustainable system.'
On the label of 'Roundup', it says that 'when labeled directions are carefully followed, Roundup is not harmful to humans, animals or their environment.'
PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are chemicals that were developed and sold by Monsanto for decades. These chemicals are highly toxic and have been associated with birth defects, infertility, impaired mental function (primarily children), immune weakness and cancer. PCBs have now been banned and production has ceased. Unfortunately, dangers still exist and the chemicals can stay in the environment for centuries to come, poisoning water, land and people. An example of this happened in Anniston, Alabama, United States. A resident, David Baker (President of Community Against Pollution), recalls his brother's premature death due to cancer along with the loss of his friends in the past 3 years, all of the illnesses they suffered, including cancer, diabetes and hepatitis, all of which have been associated with PCBs. He then starts to tell the story of how a recent contamination in the area has meant that people were forced to move from their homes and points out how the Monsanto was given the permission to dump the PCBs in the water and bury it in the ground around the areas that people lived. This was kept hidden. This is one of a number of evidence which helps support the accusation that Monsanto has "made its millions producing poisons."
The documentary goes on to find reports about Monsanto labeled 'Confidential', which revealed that two workers exhibited symptoms of hepatitis in 1961 'after a pipe broke in a factory using PCBs'. Then, in 1966, the scientists of Monsanto put fish in a tributary of Snow Creek, located approximately 0.5 to 0.75 miles north of the Monsanto factory plant, and they all died within 3 and a half minutes.
In February 1970, a letter from Monsanto, addressed to sales executives was entitled 'Pollution'. In the letter, the company states: 'We can't afford to lose one dollar of business.' The President of the Environmental Working Group, Ken Cook, points out that 'Their (Monsanto's) neighbours in Anniston were not told about the poisoning that they were inflicting upon them because they did not want to lose 'one dollar'.' He talks about how it took lawyers through the legal system to force Monsanto to own up to their secret documents and when government authorities were informed about this information, took to the side of the company instead of with the people.
Dr David Carpenter, Ph.D. is an expert on the effects of PCBs on human health. He did a test on the Anniston area. He quotes: 'The issue is that many diseases are caused by PCB exposure.'
'90% of the GMOs grown on the planet belong to them'
http://films.nfb.ca/monsanto/
